


Mysterious Tutor

by CatarinaLopes54



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1970s, Abuse, Drugs, F/M, Graphic Depictions of Illness, PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Thriller, warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:20:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23883661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatarinaLopes54/pseuds/CatarinaLopes54
Summary: Back in 1979, Ahn-Zhang is living with the only survivor of his adoptive family. Suddenly, she is stricken with a disease...
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character





	Mysterious Tutor

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: this has a rape and graphic depictions of a terrible illness. Short story about Ahn Zhang Aang's background.

As soon as the ringing of the wind chime echoed, she had a voice telling this would not be the usual business costumer. A chilling gust of wind threw open the doors, allowing the scorching, pouring rain to flood the Hong Kong’ Indonesian-Chinese restaurant. It was far too dark for executives to wander around in the streets. Yet, the old Indonesian woman couldn’t simply shoo that man away.

There was nothing abnormal about him, other than the very accentuated square jaw and the deep set of brown eyes. Doctor Hou Xinyi…He didn’t come from old money – his father had been a high-ranking member of the Communist Party, or at least, that is what most mainlanders said. Baang Wati merely nodded and sighed. Hou Xinyi, the dubious criminal …Or Hou Xinyi, the misanthropic lawyer from Hong Kong? She had no idea. Her illness and her alcohol sometimes made her memory weak. At times, she saw in Doctor Hou the same determination she had seen in men like President Mao or the Great Leader from North Korea. She wondered if this young man aspired to the Chairman’s position. It was impossible. He came from a bourgeois background.

Whatever small reference to an incident occurring a few years in the North had vanished – she knew, Baang Wati knew. Those bastards of Beijing were cowards when it came to the Corporation, a gang of rebels and drug dealers with headquarters in the chaotic and war-torn Vietnamese-Thai border. These men somehow had middlemen within the complex Communist system. Baang Wati worshipped the President, but even she was aware that old man could never purge Asia from its rotten apples.

She had dealt with men like Doctor Hou during the war. Doctor Hou was handsome. There was a distinct and clear fragrance of coconut water in the man’s cologne. Aang Baang Wati could feel it.

Aang Baang Wati tried to clean with a mop the soaked stone floor, excusing herself that this summer the windows were broken and she did not have time to replace the glass. She found herself mumbling words in Indonesian, even though the man could barely understand her. 

The boy was lazing around. Her only waiter…Aang Baang Wati sighed. Had not been for her poor brother, she would never had taken that boy under her care. Fifty-four years old, and her heart still pulsated in her chest whenever a man flirted with her.

 _You’re a dirty whore..._ Baang Wati said to herself in her Indonesian-English, the rapid heartbeat muffling the man’s words in a slightly accented Cantonese. _No man would ever care for you. Not when you were a girl, not now._

‘I said I wanted some Peking duck and boiled egg.’

‘Balut? Oh yes…Yes.’ She blurted, her voice slightly unfazed by the raspy and deep mainlander voice.

Being five feet tall, Baang Wati wasn’t definitely a beauty. Her once curvy body had lost some of its firmness and now she was a skinny woman with sagged breasts. Her dark olive body was scarred with Japanese steel marks. The dark hair was still beautiful. It fell just on the length of her waist. It was the only part of her body Baang Wati was proud. She spent most of the boy’s survival pension in those hair products. In a few nights, after praying to the Lord to help her, Baang Wati felt ashamed of her miserable state. Indulging herself in hair products when her youngest brother had begged her to care for the boy and raise him as her own. Yet, the guilt melted away as soon as a man in his forties asked a few favours beneath the table. Fifty dollars. Fifty American dollars. That was enough for her to import the Indonesian-Chinese restaurant was famous throughout the block in Hong Kong. Once, she had managed to sneak a bill of one hundred pounds from a British official. 

Baang Wati shivered, the hot and cold feeling of the wind making her lungs pierce her with a horrid, excruciating pain.

 _This is nothing…It’s nothing. It’s your punishment for sleeping with men._ Hacking cough echoed from her as she tried to muffle it with a handkerchief.

Fumbling about, she glared to the skinny boy.

‘You…boil the balut …I’ll prepare the Peking duck rice. Please, take some of your black tea, Ahn-Zhang. Wouldn’t want you to get sick.’ She giggled.

Waddling through a sea of emotions, Baang Wati shoved the boy to the kitchen, her dark green _qipao_ barely rustling against the pantyhose. That man from Thailand had warned her to take care of herself, to not drink herself silly. But taking care of a boy whose fortune she had only seen a mere fraction was a torture. She had made sure the restaurant was germ free. Rubbing bleach and chlorine on the surfaces every now and then was a horrifying chore. Rubbing, rubbing and more rubbing, until the floors were germ free – once she had seen a mosquito in Ahn Zhang’s small bedroom. Screaming, Baang Wati hammered a piece of a book she could find into the offending creature. The boy was worth gold and hell would freeze over when she allowed any dirty creature to touch him.

Wasting money on those masks, snacking kiwis and oranges when she could…Drinking counterfeit alcohol to forget her dreams…Receive guests with a smile, tuck a young Ahn Zhang to sleep before she dimmed the candlelight. She allowed him to go to school, but she could not help him that much with his homework. That was her routine.

The twelve-year-old boy threw a glare in response. Yet, he didn’t answer in Indonesian, as he used to when he whined about not being able to return to classes.

One minute for the rice to be prepared. At least, that what’s she attempted to do before spitting a whole portion of dark and deep blood to the pan. Shrieking, Baang Wati almost burnt herself in the kitchen. Baang Wati was a strong woman. Ten years ago, the British doctor had warned her not to drink or the Disease would catch up to her. He had told her she should stay in the jungles of Indonesia. Yet, as soon as she saw her brother being bitten by those dreadful, devilish things known as the mosquitoes, she scurried back to Hong Kong.

_Fuck! Fuck…I thought this whole mess was over…I thought I had rid myself of this--!_

‘Auntie? Is there something?’ The boy asked in an honest and clear tone in English.

Cleaning some of the sweat that damned Disease brought to her, Baang Wati tried to plaster a normal face. She was paler. She knew.

Her voice came out in a brittle and ragged tone:

‘Just…prepare the Peking duck, dear…Auntie…Aunt…FUCK! Auntie’s heading to bed.’

Wheezing as she coughed a little more, Baang tried to crawl her way to her small bedroom, hoping the mercy of the Lord’s creations (a mix of opium tincture and Western pain medication) and the Bible would bring her some peace. 

_Fucking disease’s not gonna take me! all of my three brothers were taken by malaria or any other disease, but not me, not Aang Baang Wati…Lord give me strength! I…I…I only craved for alcohol and sex…Why…Why are You punishing me, Lord!_

A crash of a few dishes depicting the Scenes of Passion made by a Dutch artist barely registered in her tired brain. Forcing herself to drink the opium and pain medication with a glass of water, Baang Wati sighed, nearly gagging with the mix.

‘God…Dear God…’ She sobbed. ‘God…don’t let that boy watch me…Don’t let that handsome man watch…’

The hallucinations began to appear in her mind. The antibiotics began to work…Yet, as soon as they worked, so did the images. _Why are you so cruel to me, lord? I’m a pure soul!_ It was a groaning boy writhing beneath her. Her brother Joseph…her brother begging her for her not to force him away from “Dad and Mom”. She justified herself.

 _Joseph! I need to do this! I need to sell you to Captn’ Justin. I need to do this! I need THAT VACCINE!_ She screamed, slapping him hard. Baang Wati had knocked him out unconscious. She remembered that day when she had sold her brother to a group of drug dealers.

Her nephew was screaming for her to stop. To stop using his wee-wee.

 _Michael_ spluttering beneath her. He was grabbing to a flask of vaccines against the tetanus.

_You, Expeditus and Euclesio always get the better things…_

_Dad’s paying Expeditus and Euclesio their university studies – what the fuck do you want? You ungrateful bastard!_ Baang Wati screamed as her teenage self fought against the eight-year-old kid. She needed that treatment. She had survived a camp of comfort women by tattooing herself with the face of a demon on her right clavicle through the help of drug dealers. She had survived a cruel world of men. She had eluded the capture to be the concubine of corrupt Chinese, Thai warlords and it wouldn’t be an eight year old boy dictating what she wanted from her life! _I…I wish…I wish you were just shot by those Japanese assholes!_

The next day, Michael was found dead with one of Euclesio’ knifes. Euclesio was arrested.

A manly purr echoing in her head – it drilled her, it poisoned her mind. Baang Wati struggled, but a pair of claw-like, pale hands pinned her to the ground. She tried to scream, but one of the hands muffled her mouth.

‘You Indonesian bitch…’ A demonic voice vibrated in her head. 

A sharp cry hovered in the air. The man spluttered some blood. She recalled this. The middle-aged Japanese officer had fallen to her tied knees. His mouth was stained with blood, the decaying teeth showing how he had fallen victim to the disease. She had been a child then.

Baang Wati swore she could see her oldest brother. Expedictus. His oval jaw hovered above her.

‘Sis…Wa-wa. Wa-wa – are you okay?’ Her saintly brother was here to save her, with his big brown eyes and the soft skin. 

‘I don’t…I don’t…’

‘The Americans told me those …Those horrible Japanese bastards did to you…Oh…my poor…my poor sister.’ 

He had been…She had been torn from her brothers. Most of her pregnancies were failures. She had no idea where those kids were. Baang Wati hoped they were doing fine.

‘Expedictus…please…stay with me…my…’ She panted.

* * *

Ahn Zhang glanced regretfully to the backdoor leading to the kitchen, his eyes moist as he devoured the meat, scooping the rice with the chopsticks.

‘Auntie…’

‘Are you all right, son?’ Doctor Hou asked as he watched the boy eat some of the fried rice and the meat.

He had no idea that woman had forced the boy to live in such a squalid and dirty restaurant. Making sure he helped the boy cook the duck, the drug kingpin almost felt sorry for the old woman. She only needed a little push to die… Her experiences during the war must have tainted her beyond any salvation. He could have her taken to a hospital. Nevertheless, he had an idea that tuberculosis hadn’t claimed Baang Wati solely for her will to live. It reminded him of his own stubbornness.

It would be a miracle Ahn Zhang hadn’t caught the horrifying illness. No, not a miracle – the boy was so focused on his depression he hadn’t noticed one day while he was serving the lawyer, a prickly feeling on his arm. Hou might not be a man that had read many Western books, but as a boy, his adoptive father had brought the Tales of Hans Christian Andersen. He found it ironic how the tale his younger self related more – a young physician having as a godfather Death Itself – would end up repeating in a strange manner.

Tuberculosis…No, those bacteria weren’t the ones that would kill a woman as stubborn as Aang Baang Bati. Men were careless!

‘Ahn Zhang…Don’t you want to live somewhere else, far from this...quaint restaurant?’

‘It would be rude of me to leave my aunt in a time like this…’

‘She’s sucking your happiness away, my boy.’ Hou snarled. His voice sounded a little too rough.

‘She’s the one who manages my bank account. Dad died and he left a third of his possessions to a mysterious man he had claimed on his will to be my Tutor. The rest he left to a woman back in Japan, and the other third to Auntie Bati…’

‘Would you care to tell me who your father left the money?’

‘No…Auntie never explained it to me…’

Suddenly, they heard a loud bang. 

Ahn-Zhang rushed to the old and tiny bedroom, Doctor Hou in tow. His tattooed aunt was laying on her bed, knees stained with blood, yelling “get the fuck out of my bedroom, Demon! Get out! Get out! Get out!” 

The old woman knew how to handle a gun…Xinyi Hou was impressed. Yet, her sanity was slowly fading.

‘Oh, God! God! God! Auntie!’ Ahn Zhang cried, tears moistening his eyes.

‘Crap…Damnable Men…There is no God, boy. No God would ever create a creature that would turn so wicked to the point of raping constantly women.’ Hou muttered coldly. He could not know…He was far too young by the time it happened. He was an orphan too, but he knew his mother was a brave woman. ‘Your Auntie is lost…Those men took all from her…Her dignity, her sanity, even her health.’

Xinyi Hou inhaled, feeling a string of pain. He had no idea he could feel that way. The young Indonesian boy was clearly lost in this world. His real mother…No one in this world knew. In a sense, these dark years after the war had opened many wounds throughout the world. Even though the West seemed to delude themselves in a sense of false peace, that war had torn the world apart. Ahn Zhang needed someone to guide him. His adoptive uncles had all died, even if they were in that safe haven.

Mrs. Aang was in the brink of death with her pale and emaciated skin. Even though Hou wasn’t a real medic or a physician, he knew she had tuberculosis. There was no hope for her. What a pitiful family.

Ahn Zhang’s big and dark eyes eyed the muscular, heavily tattooed man. 

‘Was…Will she be all right, Doctor Hou?’

‘I am not a real doctor. I’m just a lawyer. It’s different. Case and point, your Aunt needs to be taken to the hospital. Don’t worry about your Aunt, boy. I will call some of my connections and then we can end this charade once and for all.’ 

The boy nodded, flustered, embarrassed and shocked at the following events. He understood him. No one could predict an avalanche – first malaria had claimed the boy’s adoptive family, leaving him as the sole heir, and now this. He’d protect the boy. 

‘Thank you…’ 

‘You’re welcome…’ Hou said, his voice somehow relieved the Host hadn’t visited the boy yet. ‘Let’s go eat something to purify ourselves from…from whatever …’

‘Aunt Baang Wati always…She often told me to wash the vegetables and salt them before serving them. There’s at least five kilos of oranges. She often shared those with me…’

‘Nevertheless, I want you to be a healthy boy.’

* * *

Calling the Hong Kong hospital was easier than he thought. Hou had no idea the young man he had saved from that village four years ago was that considerate. The young doctor agreed to push the elderly woman to the pulmonary diseases aisle with a priority label on her bed.

Placing both hands on the small can-shaped of a luggage division that was the ambulance, Hou Xinyi sighed.

‘Thank you so much for helping me, Wong.’

‘It’s Wang…Anyhow…I have a bad feeling about this…’ The young doctor commented as he wiped some sweat with a clean wipe. ‘You…a terrorist…Helping the son of the Canned Tuna Millionaire Aang?’

‘Can’t a man be altruistic once and a while? Besides, it’s not Aang didn’t know me. He just knew the alter ego Sung Filipe Martin Yating, a honest and successful Macaense accountant.’

The Northern mainlander winced as he heard these words.

‘That tattoo…It gives me the iiby-jeebers. Besides...poor Aang’s brand was called Grinning Ravan. I wonder if this is all part of…a sadistic joke.’ The good doctor muttered in mild English.

‘Spare me your teenage boy comic book villain schemes, Wong. I am not that cliché. I’m a drug dealer and an assassin lord, not an insane cultist.’

Wong narrowed the eyes from beneath the surgical mask. It was clear he had an extreme phobia of diseases. Yet, the doctor somehow had managed to enter medical school. When he had last seen the young man, he was just a teenager.

‘Why does that woman have a similar tattoo to yours then?’

‘It’s a mere coincidence…’ Hou hissed, slightly annoyed. He understood the young man’s suspicions. After all, a few years, he had just taken two entire villages’ hostage by placing with a few other gang members chlorine bombs he had smuggled from a government military base.

‘You’re one of the most dangerous men here in Hong Kong…what makes you think I wouldn’t suspect you of poisoning an innocent elderly woman…’

Hou Xinyi smirked, his face enigmatic. He knew the boy couldn’t speak Hakka. He would be lost in translation.

‘The Tuberculosis bacteria samples are in a secured area in an underground floor in the Chinese govermnent’ embassy…I know this because I’m in cahoots with the local officers. Don’t you think if I have all this access to the little creatures, if I’m that villainous, I’d attack the entire population of Hong Kong via the subway…Or better yet, the bus lines?’

Wong sighed as his eyes drifted to the outside.

‘No…You held those two villages hostages merely because the Chinese government wasn’t providing enough food for them.’

‘That’s right, young man. I hate the Chinese government for their self-centred, hypocritical thinking. I wouldn’t put the lives of millions at risk.’

‘Uncle…’ The Indonesian word came out from Ahn Zhang. ‘Auntie Baang Wati will be fine, won’t she?’

‘Boy… I have seen many men, strong men falling to this illness’s mercy. We don’t---! Let’s just think you need to say your goodbyes to your Aunt.’

‘Aunt…I’m so sorry…’ The twelve year old sobbed as he tried to place the head against the sickened and emaciated woman’s chest. Wong immediately pried him.

‘I’m sorry, boy.’ The twentyish doctor shook his head. ‘Tuberculosis is a deadly disease, and highly contagious. We can’t…’

‘She’s my aunt!’ He cried desperately. ‘She washed my clothes and made my bed and sang me to sleep when I failed my exams…Why---?! Why?! Why can’t I say good…’

‘You may cry, son. But…please…do it carefully.’

Suddenly, the Indonesian boy craned his head towards the assassin lord. Hou couldn’t possibly think the boy meant that loving and desperate expression towards him. He was only reaching out to the closest man similar to his father. 

Jumping to him like a love-starving puppy, the boy cuddled next to him, sobbing helplessly. 

Flustered, Hou Xinyi could only pat the boy’s head awkwardly as Ahn Zhang clang to him. 

‘God…’ Wong muttered. ‘Doctor Hou…’

‘Don’t call me that, Wong. You’re worthier of that title than I am.’ 

‘Hou…I…I can’t believe you’re here, playing the hero. Surely there’s something you have got to gain from this.’

Wong seemed a little too distrustful of Hou Xinyi’s words. Xinyi himself would be. The terrorist that had taken hostage hundreds of people with a handful of men…yes, he would be. 

‘I don’t want Aang’s fortune – I have already a piece of pie. And it’s delicious! The Kubikawa have another one and I am not that type of hound that goes to others’ share.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Well…I’m a lawyer, I could easily say Mrs. Aang part can’t possibly be administered by her landlord. However, the man owes me many favours and I wouldn’t want to anger him.’

Wong shivered at that comment in Cantonese.

‘Her…Her landlord…? She didn’t owe that restaurant?’

‘No. It’s a small fraction of a tall building. Hong Kong is a tax haven. Anyone can buy whatever they want. Make do with that information whatever you want, Wong, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Wong shook his head.

‘If you’re wary of the landlord, sir, then I won’t press it any further.’

‘Good man…’ 

A small curse word seemed to come from the younger man’s mouth, but he shut it instantly.

‘What about the boy…?’

‘I’m…’ Hou noticed then that Ahn Zhang had fallen asleep. The shock of seeing his aunt falling ill must have affected him.

‘That woman had made deals with the Devil…I suppose she paid the price…There’s no point in dragging him. Again…what would you know? You’re just a training pulmonologist.’

‘You would be surprised what a medicine trained doctor in the United Kingdom has seen, Hou.’

‘I wouldn’t…And you’re no James Bond, Wong. Those people will dispose of you as fast as a wealthy guy disposes of a greedy gold-digger.’

Wong was left puzzled as the ambulance parked next to the hospital back entrance.

‘Make your miracles, Doctor…’

‘I will extract whatever dose of laudanum that stupid woman has put on herself, but only because her nephew is worried for her. Stupid woman…She shouldn’t…’

‘The woman’s an alcoholic…Of course she’d try to force her PTSD out.’

‘Oh, right…she’s Indonesian. And Expedictus’ autobiography says he did have to rescue his own sister from drug warlords. I don’t think her lungs can be saved though…Yours? I am sure you could find a good treatment for quitting…’

A small pearl of sweat dropped from the young training doctor as Hou Xinyi clawed his hands on the doctor’s shoulders.

‘Wong…’ The older man said in a condescending, patronising tone. ‘you’re twenty-five. Don’t think you can give me lessons how to live my life. Besides…You owe me!’ A snarl came from the man’s throat as he gripped the doctor’s shoulders. ‘Don’t you ever forget it…!’ 


End file.
